Google issued its annual "Year In Review" post, emphasizing key trends for the year, and it showed that the mobile blockbuster "Flappy Bird" was far and away the most searched video game term.
The company writes that at its peak in February, when the game rose to fame, only to be removed days later (it has since returned), "Flappy Bird" was globally searched more than twice as frequently as "Destiny."
Bungie's latest online FPS may have had the largest budget of the games released in 2014, but it was outdone in terms of Google search trends by "Flappy Bird" and another small-scale title, known as "2048."
To put the ridiculous popularity of "Flappy Bird" into proper context, Google's global search trend results show that "Flappy Bird" was the number six overall search for 2014. It even outpaced ISIS, "Frozen," and the Soichi Olympics. Robin Williams was the top overall search trend of 2014...showing, of course, that morbid curiosity gets the best of everyone.
Google's "Year In Review" study also found that retro-themed games had a very strong showing in 2014, with games such as "Shovel Knight" and "FTL: Faster Than Light" on the trends list.
Google's top trending games, globally, of 2014 were:
1. "Flappy Bird"
2. "2048"
3. "FIFA 15"
4. "Destiny"
5. "Titanfall"
In just the United States alone, Google expanded its list to ten titles:
1. "Destiny"
2. "Titanfall"
3. "Watch Dogs"
4. "ArcheAge"
5. "Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare"
6. "Madden NFL 15"
7. "Mario Kart 8"
8. "Dragon Age: Inquisition"
8. "Battlefield Hardline"
10. "League of Angels"
Video games also appear in the Google report as part of the Consumer Electronics search category. Microsoft's Xbox One came in at number seven, while neither Sony's PlayStation 4 nor Nintendo's Wii U charted in the top ten. You can check out Google's full "Year In Review" study right here.
